Sunny Days and Ned Kelly country

Oh the glorious sunshine! We have been blessed with lovely sunny weather for the last week. Despite that, I was'nt able to muster the courage to go microlighting. Being scared of heights didnt help and besides, there were lots of other things to do in Bright. Sat. saw the beginning of the Spring festival with many open gardens, thankfully in walking distance from the town. I am blown away by the incredible variety of trees, shrubs and flowers in this region. We took ourselves off to the Community Center for dinner and a show that night. "A Sentimental Bloke" It was very funny and amazingly well acted by a travelling troup. On Sunday, there was a big brass band concert in the park just over the river which we enjoyed from the comfort of our van park. On the way out of town on Mon, we stopped at the Old Tabacco Sheds,(formerly used for drying tobacco) now a series of antique shops (26 in all) and had fun poking around all the unusual bits and pieces. We only had 60 ks to Beechwood so we took our time, stopping in the towns we passed through. They are all so pretty and seemingly, historical. The Ovens valley still seems to grow lots of tabacco and there are many wineries. We stopped at Myrtleford for morning tea and happened accross the most amazing, eclectic shop, which just appeared to be a cafe called Fez, but once inside, revealed another world...very exotic collection of Moroccan, Chinese and Indian imports for the house and garden.And, yes, I did manage to part with some dollars there.

On to Beechwood, Ned Kelly country. To get us in the right frame of mind, we hired the movie "Ned Kelly" before looking at all the historical buildings including the goal where he was imprisoned. Our van park is 2 ks from town, but its a beautiful walk beside Lake Sambell. Our RV is parked overlooking it. The town is

full of old buildings and the streets tree lined like Bright.Its very beautiful and peaceful.

Vicki
The old Court House Beechworth

Main Street of Beechworth

View of Lake Sambell from the RV

Stuff for the garden in the Fez shop Myrtleford (and me)

Interesting bits in The Old Tobacco  Shed in Bright

The Shed

Marnie trying some goods for sale!

Sunshine and snow!

Victorians are funny people. . On the trip from Mallacoota....over 200 ks, (which is quite a distance for us) we were very amused by the  "stop, revive survive" type signs. Every 20 ks or so, a sign appeared saying
"Feeling sleepy, power nap now" or "Yawning, power nap now" "tired eyes, power nap now" I half expected to see the roads littered with powernappers! but it appears, no one took up the offers.Another sign cracked me up "dont sleep and drive"
The Mingling Waters Camping ground at Nowa Nowa looked beautiful on the web site and we were not dissapointed when we arrived. It was a hot 28C and we parked under the shade of a spreading blackwood tree, pulled out the table and chairs and said "hows the serenity". And serene it was for an hour or so. Suddenly 20 year 9 school students, doing their Duke of Edinborough award, arrived from the river dragging their kyacks behind them. It seems they were staying in a cabin about 50 meters from us. This co insided with the arrival of hundreds of mossies! Oh well, all part of the fun of it! I feared we may have to compete with these 20, for the amenities block, in the morning. I need not have worried, there was more competition of the flying kind. The shower stall was covered in thousands of insects, from tiny to moth size.I dealt them a deathly blow with water from the shower head.(Am I having fun yet!)
The next day we stopped in Omeo, but it was the trip to Bright that was quite spectacular. Driving along the Alpine Highway in beautiful sunshine. It had snowed a week ago. Thankfully there was none on the road but heaps on the mountains. A spectacular sight. The drive down the mountain, from 1800 feet to 400, however, was more than hair raising. I have said weve driven on some steep, winding roads before. Not true....this was STEEP AND WINDING to the MAX!! Marnie had to prize my knuckles off the dashboard when we finally arrived in Harrietville, not far from Bright. It was made worse by all the warning signs...Beware of falling rocks...Keep to the left of the orange poles (presumably so you wouldnt go over the massive drop at the side of the Rd) and beware of large vehicles on narrow bends. Phew...It was with great relief and much thanks that we arrived safetly in Bright.
What a gorgeous town. I think it worthy of at least 4 days or more. The spring festival gets underway tomorrow with much to do including Fetes, open gardens, art exhibitions and much more. We are going to a local production of "A sentimental bloke" tomorrow night. I am also trying to get up the courage to go microlighting....that is, powered hang gliding. The van park is right on the Ovens river and only 400 meters to town...just perfect. Marnie has cycled off into the sunset for some sketching of the local scenery and I am off to do the town.

Vicki

Beautiful snow gums

Marnie and snowy  Victorian mountains

Mount Hotham.

There was movement at the station for the word had passed around...

...that the girls from old Killarney Vale had made it to the high country. Yee haa round 'em up boys, here we are in the Victorian alps, where the Snowy River runs and so did the Kelly gang, once. Since Vicki last wrote, we left Eden and almost immediately entered Victoria which was a milestone for me having only ever been to Melbourne on a stop-over to Bali in 1987 or around then. I have to say, it's not like going to another country or anything, but we did stop for a photo by the 'Welcome to Victoria' sign. Driving along an endlessly bushy road I soon noticed the aqua coloured leaves on the gums (and wattle) and had a small light-bulb moment. When I saw the McCubbin exhibition in Canberra I remarked to Vicki that he used a lot of aqua in his paintings and perhaps that was because he was influence by European artists as our trees (eucalypts) are more your reddish-green. But there you go... he was from Victoria afer all and to paint the bush truthfully here, one must include aqua in the palette.

Now, where are we again? Omeo, Omeo where for art thou...? We're in Omeo on our way to Bright tomorrow. Last night we were in Nowa Nowa and before that we had 3 nights in Mallacoota. I thought Eden was terrific between rain showers and howling gales. I was thrilled with the prolific bird life (need to get a What Bird is That book) particularly the Lorikeets that deeply appreciated our offerings of fruit, and I managed to get a few sketches and watercolours done... (You can see a few of my paintings thus far here)

Mallacoota is beautiful too. Lots of water and pelicans and boats and nice people and things like that. We visited St Peters Church on Sunday morning and got chatting with some of the friendly locals, and had a night 'on the town' at Lucy's noodle bar, where we slurped chinese noodles and had a game of scrabble debating whether 'bra' is a valid word or an abbreviation... my argument being who on earth says brassiere? (I got to use 'bra' but some others of us were feeling there was some cheating going on). The highlight for me though was getting up in the middle of the night on our last night to put away the awning which was flapping about in the breeze and threatening to detach itself... (hold on, it gets better) and even in my hasty, get-me-back-to-bed state, I took a quick peek up at the clear night sky and just about had my socks knocked off. The stars were 10x bigger and brighter than the stars we had in the Byron hinterland when I lived there out in the middle of nowhere. I looked at the channel marker lights in the bay and the stars in the sky were the same brightness. (I sware!). The Milky Way was way milky and had it not be so freezing I would have lain on the grass and watched the sky for the rest of the night. I tried to prove my experience to Vicki last night at Nowa Nowa but there was hardly a star to be seen for the clouds and haze. It's cloudy again tonight and now I'm beginning to wonder if I was perhaps having a slight delusion. Well, anyways, I'll be having an eye on the night sky from here on just in case.

I'm pretty excited about being inland because the coast is all very nice, I mean, it's incredibly beautiful, but I think inland is more various and interesting and painting-wise, more inspiring. I've been poring over paintings by the Australian Impressionists (Streeton, McCubbin, Roberts, Conder etc) trying to work out how they did what they did so wonderfully. Not as easy as it looks (see my art blog).

You know you've relaxed when wearing jeans feels too formal. It's all about nuances of dagginess in tracksuit pants. There's the good ones that haven't stretched much yet for Being in Public days, the worn in ones looking baggy around the back bits for Cold and Rainys, and then there's the painting ones... holey and colourful. Yep, love those trackies.

Alright, better save a few things for Vicki to say, bye for now,

Marnie

A sunny moment at Eden

Not so sunny moment...

Lorikeet posing for the camera 

The 2 regulars waiting for pear (or apple or grapes or anything on offer, not fussy) 

  Bird's eye view of the feeding frenzy

Yay! we made it to Victoria

  One little bird in Mallacoota

  Sun set in Mallacoota

Set up for painting

Mallacoota by day... 

The river at Nowa Nowa this morning

Today at Omeo (can you tell we're in the high country?) 

Unfavourable weather and abundant Lorikeets

We have now been in Eden for 4 days. We drove down through Cooma, where a stop at the Snowy Mountains Scheme visitor Information centre was a must. Then through Nimittabel , a cute small town whose name is a real challenge to pronounce….Nim…accent on the I….the ts almost but not quite silent, and aBELL at the end…according to a local. We practiced it for some time before getting it just right. By that time we were almost in Bemboka, where we had decided to stop at the sports grounds for the night. Bemboka is a lovely dairy farming area with green rolling hills, cute shops and houses and a wonderful pie shop. I naturally bought one for dinner and yes, it was excellent.

We headed for Eden, and on the way, via a steep and windy mountain road, (yes, a little nerve wracking for the one not in control) passed through the delightful old scenic, town of Candelo. We were very tempted to stay but as it was only 35 ks from our last camp, we decided press on all the way to Eden. The tourist park at Asling beach, Eden, is so spacious , with abundant bird life, a lake on one side and a beach on the other. We have had a great time with the lorikeets. A pair of them has adopted us. It could have something to do with all the fruit on offer . They come by regularly and announce their presence, squawking, until we come out with some fruit, then hop up to our hands to eat. They drive off any other competitors, firmly staking their claim on us. We call them Lori and Kate . There are black swans on the lake, Plovers, noisily protecting their young, sparrows, ducks and Willy wag tails and heaps of Lorikeets .
The weather has been a mixed bag, making it difficult to plan the day. Sun, rain, hail, thunder and wind. And that was just before breakfast! I walked the 2 klms into town yesterday, while Marnie rode her bike. The sun was shining and after a good poke around the shops and some lunch, I was ready to head back but by then it was pouring with rain. I didn’t think there would be too many taxis in Eden, so I decided to sit it out in the local library, availing my self of their free internet, until it finally stopped and I managed to walk back.
Being a prawn lover, I was hoping to locate some , just caught, fresher than fresh , local crustaceans, but was disappointed to find the only ones on offer, were frozen from Yamba. None at this time of the year, I was assured.

Vicki

Lovely Asling beach

Typical mixed bag sky

Lori and Kate

And their friends More pear please

Bemboka pie shop

A capital time in the Capital

Gosh, where to start regarding Canberra? Firstly an amendment to my last entry, Werri isn't that, it's Warri, but not to worry.

We met a couple at Warri who recommended we stay at Exhibition Park in Canberra which we have done. It's been host to the National Show Jumping championships all week, ending today, so there have been big-rigs and horses in abundance. Some of the vehicles they arrive in are YUGE... like semi-trailer size with stables in the back for 6 horses and accomodation in the front for the show jumping team. Looks to be a rather costly past time. Word around town is that the most decent prize was a new saddle. Now that's hardly going to help things any is it! Anyhoo, they've just about all cleared out now and we're enjoying the serenity and warmth of the afternoon sun before the cool of night sets in.

It was a bit of a shock to me to realise that my one and only other visit to Canberra occurred roughly 28 years ago. No wonder all I remember is the 'water jet in the lake', which I now know is the Captain Cook Memorial Jet. Since it's the only thing in the whole of Canberra that rang a bell I was pretty excited to finally see it as we drove past it yesterday. The rest of Canberra has been a wonderously eye-opening time for me. I think Mr Burley Griffin did a marvelous job of planning the layout of the city, especially the way Parliament house lines up with the War Memorial... between which is a hugely wide street called Rememberance Drive lined with beautiful maple trees. Looking up and down from either end or the middle is a most worthy sight.

The first morning here we woke up to 4 degrees in the van and frost on the grass outside, which is when it became my personal mission to find uggboots, beanie and gloves. Not so easy when all those items are 'Out of Season'. Personally I feel they're still very much in season, but anyhoo, managed to get all but the latter and I can feel it in my waters that since the temps are slowly rising each day, before long we'll be storing all this winter gear in the boot and complaining about the heat... so maybe I'll make do without the gloves.

Back to the First Morning Here... we decided, at the advice of the nice but slightly 'lacking in information' lady at the Information Centre, that we should leave the van here (Exhibition Park) and get the bus to town to see the National Gallery and city shopping district. Well, did we nearly freeze to death waiting for the bus Or What?? And did we nearly do the same waiting for the other buses we waited for and Hold the Phone, what are all those lovely Above Ground car parks with plenty of parking in them Nice Information Lady?

Day two to six... James (GPS) guides us to Our Destinations around Canberra in the comfort of our own Home Sweet Home. Once we had parking success on the first day there was no going back. It's convenient and quick, it's warm, it has a clean loo, it has changes of clothes for changes of weather (forgot the brolly? No worries! Need a sun hat? Here it is!), it has a place to rest in comfort and it has a fully supplied kitchen for lunch! And besides, parking it isn't really that hard (so far so good).

Alright, so, we did the National Gallery (me two times... the McCubbin exhibition one day and the permanant collection today), Portrait Gallery (a must see), city shopping district (shops as per anywhere really), dinner with my good friend Nic (most excellent company and delicious home made chicken pie - thanks Nic!), Floriade (excellent - great stalls, lots of tulips), War Memorial (excellent - need 4 days to do it all), Mount Ainslie (for spectacular views of Burley Griffin's wonderous city design), Farmers Market here at Exhibition Park (biggest in Southern Tablelands - but not as big as the one in Noosa according to Vicki), Parliament House (a highlight for me, if you don't count the galleries - you should see the big tapestry of Arthur Boyd's painting... took 15 people 2 and a half years to make - aside from that we had a fascinating 1 hour tour around the marvellously imposing building complete with an Australian flag the size of a double decker bus), a drive around the embassies (most of them built in the style of their country), Cockington Green (a beautiful garden where 'it's the little things that count'... ie. everything is in miniature, including the trees which were very cool), afternoon drinkies with camp-site neighbours Alister and Judy (Judy has a sister called Vicki and Alister's middle name is John) and lastly today the High Court of Australia (it's Mabo, it's the vibe... any The Castle fans out there?), the Old Bus Depot Markets and next to that the Glassworks (where one can see people making glass things).

All in all a full and satisfying time. I can highly recommend Canberra. It's much better when you aren't 10 and only interested in cap guns.

Tomorrow we are heading to Eden via Cooma. Here are some pics...

In Warri, my first attempt at 'en plein air' in oils

Freezing the so-and-so's off near by to the National Gallery

View of Floriade from the viewing deck

Tulips

Us

Tip toe through the toolips...

Exhibition Park - we're 3rd vehicle from the left. Show Jumpers are practicing on the right.

View from Mount Ainslie... War Memorial at the bottom, then Rememberance Drive, and Parliament House at the top

 Parliament House - with the big flag

A very knowledgeable man telling us all about how the Australian Parliament works, which to my surprise was totally fascinating

The view from Parliament House with Rememberance Drive, War Memorial and Mt Ainslie in the distance

Vicki purchasing one carrot at the Farmers Market... 'oh, you can just have that' says the lady. A free carrot!! Obviously they're used to bulk sales.

Marnie

Land of carparks and tulips

The bus depot marketsCocklington greenGold creek villageFloriade

Big horsey Rigg

Well, what more can I say.....I love Canberra, Frosty tho it be at this time of the year! Beautiful tree lined streets.... big blue skies...an abundance of parking (even for biggies like us)..and soooo much ta see. I think 2 weeks might be needed to get the best of it, but we have managed quite a lot in 6 days. What a treat, 1 million tulips at the Floriade....tulips as far as the eye can see, every colour of the rainbow, just beautiful. See the pics

Vicki

Lightening, thunder and free camping

Lovely rose in Milton garden

We really enjoyed our stay in Mollymook with the super hospitible Wendy & Sandy. We stopped at Mogo and Braidwood on our way to Warri reserve, 14 kms north, for our first taste of free camping. It is a gloriou
spot by the Shoalhaven river. Very picturesque. The morning dawned cold, with patchy skies but some sunshine, however, being close to Canberra, the day became typical of the region.The sky darkened, thunder rolled in and it poured, followed by hail. Then voila....the sun came out and it got reasonably warm...then it repeated the whole performance! We did the Manna house shuffle again... put it out, set it up, open it up, bring it in, close it up and bring it down. All part of the fun of camping I guess. Another bonus is getting to chat to the neighbours who seem more friendly than in the van parks. We even got to give the generator some first time exercise. Marnie has managed to do her first oil painting, despite the changable weather. Almost forgot to mention we neglected to heed the golden rule of free camping....that is, always park facing in a quick escape direction, just in case funny things happen in the night. As you can see by the photo we're in a challenging position from which to make a hasty retreat! Hopefully there'll be no boogey men here tonight.
Off to Canberra tomorrow for some cultural delights.

Vicki